The New Zealand dollar shed over half a cent against the greenback today as investors looked through improved unemployment numbers and focused on the worsening labour participation rate.

The kiwi recently traded at US83.59 cents, down from US84.18c this morning, while the Trade Weighted Index of major trading partners' currencies dropped to 75.74 from 76.25.

Figures released by Statistics New Zealand today showed that while the headline unemployment dropped from 13-year high of 7.3 per cent to 6.9 per cent in the last quarter of 2012, the number of people either in work or looking for work dropped sharply.

"While somewhat sceptical over elements of today's release, the message is clear: the labour market is weak,” said ANZ economists. “This confirms that the Reserve Bank will not be raising the OCR [from 2.5 per cent] for quite a while despite a lively housing market and rising credit growth."

On the crosses, the New Zealand dollar recently traded at A81.02 cents, down from A81.63c this morning, and fell to 78.09 Japanese yen from 78.61 yen. The kiwi closed local trading at 61.87 euro cents, down from 62.30 euro cents, and it declined to 35.36 pence from 53.72 earlier